Digital cameras have become the preferred form of photography for the majority of people, from novice to advanced user alike. All cameras (analog and digital), though, have undesired imperfections through optical artifacts created by the lens or camera when capturing images. Example imperfections include vignetting (darkening in the corners of an image), radial distortion (curvature of the image towards the edges), and lens softness (where the camera does not capture a sharp image). Furthermore, some imperfections exist exclusively for digital cameras, including bad or dead pixels (e.g., improper capture of information at one point of a light sensor). For digital cameras, less expensive digital cameras tend to create more imperfections in captured images than more expensive models. Furthermore, imperfections are generally consistent across all cameras of a camera model or using a specific lens at specific settings. For example, most point-and-shoot camera models may have the same amount of vignetting for each camera with the lens at the same zoom setting.
Typically, to correct such imperfections in images captured by digital cameras, a professional would calibrate the digital camera so that the camera would compensate for the imperfections during capture of an image. Calibrating a camera, though, is typically a laborious and expensive process. In order to calibrate a camera, the professional is required to capture specific types of images (e.g., creating a perfect checkerboard pattern placed on a completely flat surface in order to capture 10-20 images from different positions around the checkerboard pattern) using expensive equipment (e.g., an integrating sphere to create perfect luminance in order to detect vignetting) in an extremely controlled test environment. In addition, once the images are created, the person calibrating must be skilled and intimately knowledgeable of the camera in order to calibrate the digital camera.